As is well-known, in a fuel cell vehicle in which a fuel cell system is mounted, hydrogen used as fuel is supplied to a fuel cell stack to generate electricity, and an electric motor is operated by electricity generated by the fuel cell stack to drive the vehicle. In particular, the fuel cell system is a type of generation system which does not convert chemical energy of the fuel into heat by combustion, but electrochemically and directly converts the chemical energy into electric energy in the fuel cell stack.
In the fuel cell system described above, high pure hydrogen is supplied to an anode of a fuel cell from a hydrogen storing tank during the operation of the fuel cell system, and air in the atmosphere is directly supplied to a cathode of the fuel cell using an air supply apparatus such as an air blower. Accordingly, the hydrogen supplied to the fuel cell stack is separated into hydrogen ions and electrons by a catalyst of the anode, the separated hydrogen ions are moved into the cathode through a poly electrolyte membrane, and oxygen supplied to the cathode is coupled to electrons supplied to the cathode through an external lead wire to generate electric energy while generating water.
The fuel cell system described above involves a control function that includes a supply of air, a supply of hydrogen, a heat management, and the like, a control function for a power distribution between a high voltage battery and the fuel cell system, and a control function for driving a vehicle based on an intention of a driver, and operating controllers based on a sensor to perform the above-mentioned control functions. However, the controllers based on the sensor have a problem with reliability or the sensor may not sense continuously.